A fake cop, his girlfriend and a football player collide at a Salinas high school.

It could have been just another fender-bender. But for driver Elizabeth Nelson, what happened after her vehicle collided with another car could land her and a friend in prison for years.

On Sept. 28, Salinas police investigators say, a Palma High School student was leaving football practice at the school on Iverson Street in Salinas when his car collided with Nelson’s. Investigators declined to identify the student because he is under 18. According to police, Nelson told the student that her boyfriend, Tyrone Toloy, was a Salinas police officer and that he was on his way to the accident.

Within minutes, Toloy was at the scene and, according to Managing Deputy District Attorney Ed Hazel, taking what everyone believed to be a police report. But Toloy wasn’t a police officer anymore. He had been, for four short days in August, but resigned from the Salinas Police Department abruptly and without turning in all of his equipment.

Toloy reportedly told the student that he was responsible for the accident and would have to pay for the damage. He allegedly displayed a police identification card in front of several witnesses, including Palma’s principal.

Hazel says Toloy and Nelson also refused to give the student any of Nelson’s personal identifying information.

“The whole thing was an affront to the law enforcement system,” Hazel says. “It concerns us that people would engage in this kind of activity.”

At the time of the crash, both Nelson and Toloy worked with high school students. Toloy was a volleyball coach at Notre Dame High School in Salinas. According to Notre Dame officials, he no longer works at the school. Nelson is the secretary to Salinas High School Assistant Principal Michael Romero. As of Tuesday, Oct. 24, she still worked at Salinas High.

“It’s particularly offensive,” Hazel says, “when you consider they both work with children they could have a great deal of influence over, and they did this to another student. That’s a real concern to us.”

Neither Salinas High Principal John Macias nor acting Superintendent Tim Vinoli returned repeated phone calls. Nelson also refused to speak to the Weekly. Notre Dame High School officials would say only that Toloy would no longer be coaching their students and referred additional questions to the diocese.

Hazel says at the time of the accident, Nelson was driving on a suspended license because of a DUI she’d received two months earlier.

In early October, Salinas police served a search warrant at Toloy’s home and recovered a bevy of law enforcement gear, including an official police identification card. Toloy was taken into custody during a car stop where police recovered, among other things, metal knuckles with an attached knife with a 9.25-inch blade.

Nelson was taken into custody at Salinas High School.

Both Nelson and Toloy have been charged with three felony counts each of conspiracy to impersonate a police officer and one count of conspiracy to commit hit and run. Nelson has also been charged with two misdemeanors: hit and run, and driving on a suspended license. Toloy has three additional felony counts of falsely impersonating a police officer, one felony count of possession of metal knuckles, and misdemeanor charges of embezzling police property and displaying a police identification card.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” Hazel says. “It was just a minor accident. But who knows why people do the things they do?”

If convicted on all charges, Nelson could be sent to state prison for five years. Toloy could face up to 10 years. Both are free on bail pending further proceedings.

THE WEEKLY TALLY
53.21	Percent of registered Monterey County voters set to vote by absentee ballot (78,038 of 146,660), the highest such percentage in the state amongst counties with at least 100,000 voters. Source: Claudio Valenzuela, Monterey County interim registrar of voters.